Payments

The University of Maryland Medical Center will send layoff notices to employees at the end of the month as it looks to cut costs in the wake of federal budget cuts and what it and other state hospitals have called inadequate rate increases. Jeffrey Rivest, president and CEO of the Baltimore hospital, sent an email to managers Tuesday that said individual letters regarding layoffs would be given out June 25, 26 and 27. The number of people who will lose their jobs still is being finalized, said spokeswoman Mary Lynn Carver said.

The Maryland Economic Development Corp. expects to fall short next year on payments to investors who bought the bonds that funded the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay, a state-owned golf resort hotel and conference center on the Eastern Shore. Known as default, a failure to meet bond payments may increase investor scrutiny of MEDCO, a company created by the General Assembly to aid economic development throughout Maryland, experts say, but it will not affect the state's credit rating.

A change in Maryland's tax laws has reduced the cost of leasing a car, but motorists here still pay more in taxes than do those in most surrounding states.A law that became effective July 1 eliminated the 5 percent use tax Maryland motorists were charged on their monthly lease payments. For a car costing $400 a month, the change will lower the monthly payments by $20, or $480 over a two-year lease."This is going to have a positive effect on leasing in Maryland," said Paul Anecharico, sales manager at Bill Kidd's Toyota & Volvo in Timonium.

In the black market of Maryland's prisons and jails, where the right price can secure cellphones and drugs, transactions unfold through a complex system of currency. Among the key elements: 14-digit codes, prepaid debit cards and text messages. One brand of cards - Green Dot - is so ubiquitous that it has become part of the lexicon on the inside. The recent federal indictment of two dozen inmates and corrections officers in an alleged Black Guerrilla Family corruption scandal at the Baltimore City Detention Center notes several instances in which suspects refer to "dots" in transactions.

Some child support payments in Maryland could soon go up - a change that state Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald called "long overdue." For the first time in two decades, lawmakers are poised to revise the guidelines that courts use to set child support when divorcing or unmarried parents cannot agree on an amount. Those guidelines are based on household expense data from the 1970s, and although they accommodate rising incomes, advocates say they don't account for the escalating costs of raising a child.

A high-ranking administrator at the University of Maryland, Baltimore received $410,000 in "questionable compensation payments" between 2007 and 2009, according to a state audit released Thursday. The payments, made in addition to the employee's salary, were not disclosed in budget reports to the General Assembly. The routine legislative audit also alleges that the university failed to submit the employee's contract for approval by the attorney general's office or for review by the university system's Board of Regents, as required by university guidelines.

Former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's personal political accounts were billed at least $188,000 by Washington law firms during his first year as chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to state and federal disclosure reports. Steele used state campaign funds to pay the law firms, but the specific purpose for most of the expenditures wasn't disclosed, in apparent violation of Maryland reporting guidelines. Some of the costs appear to involve activity that predated his tenure as Republican national chairman.

The state may have erroneously paid up to $2.5 million on health care through the Medicaid program for more than 300 low-income residents after they died, according to a state legislative audit released Wednesday. The payments were discovered after auditors checked the names of Medicaid recipients from January 2008 through August of this year against Social Security records to capture those who died out of state. The program had relied on state vital statistics to track deaths.

Former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon has fallen behind by close to $14,000 on court-ordered payments stemming her plea deal in the corruption investigation that led to her resignation, according to state corrections filings. Dixon's probation agent sought a violation of probation charge, which was filed Monday, saying Dixon has made just four payments of $1,000 each since December 2010. A probation document says she is in arrears in the amount of $13,640. After stepping down from office, Dixon was required to give $45,000 to charity in addition to 500 hours of community service.

An influential state senator who has been the subject of a federal corruption probe used campaign contributions to pay $41,500 in apparent criminal defense legal fees over the past year, despite a 2008 Maryland attorney general's advice letter that bars such spending. Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat who heads the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, declined to answer questions about the payments to a prominent criminal defense attorney recorded on his annual campaign finance report.

A Howard County couple is suing one of the largest residential real estate brokerages in the state and a Columbia title company for more than $11 million, alleging that the firms had financial ties that violated federal law. The case is a proposed class action that could involve thousands of plaintiffs, all home buyers who bought a home with the Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster Real Estate since 2000 and used a settlement firm called Lakeview Title...

Baltimore officials are refusing to pay the city's former speed and red-light camera operator $2 million for its final three months of work, a period that preceded the troubled start for the new contractor in January. The city stopped issuing tickets from the cameras for weeks because of the rocky transition from the old vendor, Xerox State and Local Solutions, to Brekford Corp. Xerox says it's owed money for services provided in October, November and December, according to Solicitor George Nilson, the city's chief lawyer.

University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center will be able to recoup some of the tens of millions of dollars it lost while operating without a Medicare certification under a compromise reached with federal officials. The Towson hospital will be able to bill Medicare for treatment given to patients in the federal program since Jan. 7, about six weeks before it regained what is known as a Medicare provider agreement. St. Joseph had operated without one since the University of Maryland Medical System bought the hospital and chose not to renew its existing Medicare certification.

A Bel Air payroll company under investigation for allegedly not forwarding clients' tax payments to tax collectors has filed for bankruptcy. AccuPay Inc. filed a petition for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore, listing 95 creditors and debts of between $100,001 and $500,000. Chapter 7 allows for an orderly liquidation of a company's assets to pay off creditors. A bankruptcy attorney for the company's owners said Wednesday that his clients believe they will have funds available to pay creditors.

Police investigating whether Harford County payroll company AccuPay stole years of tax payments rather than sending them to tax collectors on behalf of clients warned Monday that potential victims might number in the hundreds. An investigation by the Bel Air Police Department is in the early stages and likely will involve multiple agencies, a spokesman said. Potential victims could include any business that hired AccuPay to handle its payroll and remit its state and federal taxes, the spokesman said.

Many Maryland businesses rely on a payroll service provider to handle their tax withholdings, but they still need to make sure the Internal Revenue Service gets its due. That fact became evident in recent days, following allegations that a Bel Air payroll company had failed to forward clients' tax payments to the federal government. The company - AccuPay - is under police investigation and being sued by several clients. States, including Maryland, generally don't license payroll service providers or require them to be bonded.

Five Maryland-based banks that received bailout money missed dividend payments to the federal government in August, according to data compiled by SNL Financial. They were among 115 banks and thrifts across the country that did not make the August payments, said SNL Financial in a report released Friday. In Maryland, Patapsco Bancorp in Dundalk; Rising Sun Bancorp in Cecil County; Cecil Bancorp in Elkton; Harbor Bankshares in Baltimore, and Maryland Financial Bank in Towson deferred the most recent quarterly payments.

Harford County residents will be able to view their local taxes and pay fees online through a new government Web site starting today. The site will enable residents to see their current-year property tax, property assessment, Bay Restoration Fund fee, and water and sewer charges. The service will also allow property owners to pay taxes and charges electronically to the county. Other features of the new site include a breakdown of property tax data that shows the amounts attributed to the county and state, as well as highway taxes and any homestead or homeowner credits that have been applied.

The city will be forced to dip into its general fund for $1 million to help the city-owned Hilton Baltimore make debt payments this year, city officials said Wednesday. Harry E. Black, Baltimore's director of finance, said the hotel needs the money to make payments in March and September. The Hilton is expected to contribute $2.8 million in taxes this year from the hotel occupancy tax to the general fund, so the hotel is drawing from money it created, he said. "I expect it's going to be an ongoing thing for a period of time," Black said.